<p>How HS can be in position of knowing and controling how many colleges someone is applying? Not every school asks for recs, and why apply only to top schools?</p>
<p>JHS – thanks, it was great advice. </p>
<p>He plans to apply to UM in early September. </p>
<p>you are correct about Columbia – and in the buddhist world, Robert Thurman is very well known. The focus of the program in Columbia seems more along the lines of his thinking than the one in Chicago, but you never really know until you are there. Either would be great.</p>
<p>The idea of rethinking schools after the ED/EA/UM notifications is a great one – hadn’t thought of that. My guess is that if he doesn’t do well with those three schools, Harvard isn’t going to give him an acceptance. He might do well to shift Harvard to the list of schools to apply to after his gap year – and add another school to his initial list. Also – if he gets into Columbia ED, he obviously won’t be applying to Harvard at all. Maybe he needs to just take Harvard off the list and substitute another school.</p>
<p>UVa – believe it or not – is one of the premier universities in the US on Tibetan Buddhism. Jeffrey Hopkins teaches there (one of the west’s most imminent Tibetan Buddhist scholars) – and is one of the premier schools for Tibetan Buddhism. It is probably second only to Columbia and/or Chicago in this regard. I wouldn’t have thought it either – but it is. He is willing to forego the urban location for a top-notch program like UVa.</p>
<p>I just ask him about the 5 school limit and Canadian Universities – the limit is 5 schools in North America and 5 UK European schools. I do think that Toronto and McGill are schools that my son was interested in – but I was under the impression that FA and merit aid was virtually non-existant for US citizens.</p>
<p>Miami – School controls who gets teacher recs, transcripts, etc – so they definitely know how many apps get sent out.</p>
<p>As far as why apply to only top schools – they seem to be the ones with the programs he is looking for and FA available. I really wish there were a few schools on his list that weren’t quite as selective – but those that offer the program don’t have good FA.</p>
<p>My two bits. Tibetan and Tibetan Buddhism are not suitable subjects for undergraduates. So it would be a mistake to focus college search for that reason. Perhaps the focus should be on a campus where there is a strong extracurricular interest in Tibetan Buddhism. His undergraduate focus should be on Asian studies, religion, philosophy etc. there is plenty of time to focus on Tibet in graduate studies.</p>
<p>Would UVA offer decent merit aid for an oos student? My impression was that most publics were very stingy (understandably so) with out of state aid. But I could be wrong.</p>
<p>padad – It may not be suitable for undergraduate studies, but that is where his interests lie. He will most likely be majoring in Religious Studies – but he would prefer a department that offers classes in Tibetan Buddhism, and that isn’t very common in the US. It seems like most academic departments offer tons of course on Judeo-Christian religion, with a few intro courses on Buddhism/Islam and then some general courses. He needs a program that offers the same advanced courses in Buddhism as they do in Christianity/Judaism. He is also looking at colleges that allow undergraduates to take graduate level classes if they are at that level. He will also take additional classes in Asian studies, philosophy, etc. He has already taken upper level college courses in Religion (it has been his passion for years) so he has the intro classes covered. It does make it difficult to find an appropriate program.</p>
<p>UVA is as much a crapshoot as Harvard, since he needs the FA to attend. the stats show that they meet 100% need, with ~18% of that met with work-study/loans. He can use his Davis Scholarship of $10,000 at UVa to replace the loans – so it might work.</p>
<p>I would like to expand on Momrath’s suggestion of Cornell. You can read about their Asian Studies Department at the following URL:</p>
<p>[Cornell</a> University - Department of Asian Studies](<a href=“http://lrc.cornell.edu/asian/]Cornell”>http://lrc.cornell.edu/asian/)</p>
<p>Although the Chinese language courses emphasize Mandarin and Cantonese, some of the faculty have interests in Tibetan Buddhist literature and offer courses in the subject. Cornell’s Wason Collection of East Asia includes one of the largest collections of volumes in Tibetan.</p>
<p>[Explore</a> Cornell - Wason Collection - Tibet Collection](<a href=“http://dspace-local.library.cornell.edu/web_archive/explore.cornell.edu/scene8ee3.html]Explore”>http://dspace-local.library.cornell.edu/web_archive/explore.cornell.edu/scene8ee3.html)</p>
<p>The Namgyal Monastery, also located in Ithaca, is the Dali Lama’s North American seat. His Holiness visits every year or so.</p>
<p>[Namgyal</a> Monastery Institute of Buddhist Studies](<a href=“http://www.namgyal.org/]Namgyal”>http://www.namgyal.org/)</p>
<p>The monastery has a number of educational events that are open to the public. One of the monks from Namgyal serves as a chaplain at Cornell, ensuring a connection between the monastery and the university.</p>
<p>While Ithaca is not urban, it is a large university town with lots of diversity. You specified “access to multiple religious practices (temples, synagogues, churches, sanghas, etc)” and your son will find that in Ithaca.</p>
<p>hsmonstef, Okay. UVa’s Echol progarm may suit his needs then. It is however tough to get in but not out of reach if he submits a compelling assay. Best of Luck.</p>
<p>fifty and momrath – thanks very much for the suggestion of cornell. With the location of the Namgyal monastery so close to campus and cornell’s Asian studies department, he is definitely interested!</p>
<p>padad – he is going to check out the Echols program and see what it offers and what it takes to get admitted to it.</p>
<p>It looks like we are going to do some thinking this weekend and try and reevaluate the list – you guys have given us some great ideas! This is what he is thinking:</p>
<p>First – list what he really wants/needs in a school (yes, we have done this a couple of times – but it doesn’t hurt to reevaluate based on new info).</p>
<p>Second – see where his safety (University of Colorado, Boulder) falls in comparison to what he is looking for in a school.</p>
<p>Third – eliminate schools on his list where he can’t use the Davis Scholarship (they would end up costing him alot more – even if they were cheaper to begin with)</p>
<p>Fourth – compare the remaining schools to his safety. If he would rather attend his safety, it gets knocked off the list</p>
<p>Finally – rank the remaining schools in order of where he thinks he is a best fit.</p>
<p>He is rethinking Harvard – it does offer what he wants in terms of programs, etc but the thought is if he gets deferred from Columbia ED and Chicago EA would he really have a chance at Harvard?</p>
<p>Two things I am supposed to research – financial aid at University of Michigan for out of state students (anyone know if it is any good?) and the five college consortium. It looks like a bigtime Tibetan scholar teaches at Smith (which is a women’s college – so he couldn’t go) so he is thinking of adding Amherst to the list (the other two coed schools that are part of the consortium are not Davis Scholar Schools).</p>
<p>He did look into a number of state schools with excellent programs: UCB, University of Wisconsin, University of Indiana, University of Washington, UCSB, etc – but with FA for OOS limited and the fact that they aren’t Davis Scholarship Schools, he will have to cross them off the list.</p>
<p>He is also going to try and give me some concrete info on what he wants in terms of Tibetan Buddhism. I tried to explain to him that he really isn’t going to be able to take more than 1, maybe 2, classes each semester on Tibetan (language, history, culture, religion, etc) with a typical class load of 5 classes/semester and other requirements to meet. So if the school offers some classes that suit his needs, it should be ok. Access to weekend retreats seems to be important, also.</p>
<p>I would advise him not to focus so narrowly on Tibetan Buddhism, but it is definitely his passion and has been for several years. In fact, if he had a choice, he would enter a 13 year program in India where you earn a degree in Tibetan Buddhism – but he made a deal with me to at least get his BA at a school in the US. I am hoping to broaden his knowledge base – which will be good no matter what he decides to do. </p>
<p>I will let you know what 5 schools he ends up putting on the list later this weekend. I am sure we will have more questions!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Of course I’m no admissions expert, but I say yes, if only because your s has such a focused talent and such an unusual talent. I have a good friend from high school who was absolutely stellar in one subject and somewhat lackluster in others (unlike Tibetan or anything like that, this subject is pretty standard). Everything he did in high school circled around his fascination with the one subject. His list of college acceptances was hysterical-- in at Yale and Princeton, in at the safety, rejections everywhere else. Anyway, he started winning departmental awards as a first-year at Yale.</p>
<p>Another friend of mine was also a decently good student. (And by decently good, I mean that he was qualified to consider ivies, but he was not really an academic superstar and not somebody I thought would make the best candidate for top school). However, he also had a really focused passion in a field that most people overlook, and Harvard said yes.</p>
<p>I know that my two anecdotes don’t really mean diddly, as many kids with fascinating interests don’t get into Harvard, but I use them as an example of how superpassion can carry you into a school like Harvard when maybe other aspects of the application aren’t as shiny. In either case, I’m sure that adcoms will find your son’s interest really, really, cool.</p>
<p>If he hasn’t visited a school or participated in any classes there, how can he really know whether he would rather attend his safety?</p>
<p>I think that the comparison is a useful method of pruning a too-long list, but 5 schools is definitely not in that category, IMHO.</p>
<p>hsmom, congratulations on your very thorough, thoughtful strategy to find the best school. Your son is lucky to have you!</p>
<p>hsmom - I’d suggest that this summer your son e-mail three to five faculty members at U. of Chicago who are closest to his area of interest. He should try to strike up some enthusiastic responses, and then go to Chicago in the fall to visit those faculty members and talk through their program and departmental resources. If he has a very positive experience with them, he needs to follow up with thank-you notes and e-mail them once he submits his EA application, indicating how interested he is in their program and suggesting that if they have an opportunity to put in a good word, he’d appreciate it. This is a great way for an applicant to distinguish himself from the large number of others with similar stats, but it only works when the applicant is unique enough in some way to be memorable.</p>
<p>I super-agree with gadad. I had a long discussion with the department head of a program I thought I wanted to do at a university I was quite interested in, and our conversation made me realize that the school and its program was not my first choice, but our interaction made me think really highly of the school and I would have been very excited to go there.</p>
<p>So it really helped two ways-- it helped me articulate what it was I wanted in a school and a program, and it made me excited about schools and programs in general.</p>
<p>hsmom - What UWC school does your son attend? My niece just finished her first year at the Nordic school and really enjoyed it. Her mom and dad have been kind of stressed about the college process too, as it is so difficult to visit schools when you are out of the country for the entire school year. Good luck to you and your son during this process.</p>
<p>son attends Atlantic College in Wales – he has thoroughly enjoyed the experience and he has matured and changed in many ways. </p>
<p>he will not be able to visit colleges – at best, he could visit the University of Chicago at the beginning of August, but with no classes scheduled and the campus pretty much shut down I don’t think it would be worth the money.</p>
<p>So far, he has visited Columbia, Georgetown, St. John’s University (NY), St. John’s college (Santa Fe), Northwestern, University of Chicago (when he was 12), Cambridge, Colorado College, University of Colorado in Colorado Springs.</p>
<p>Many of these visits were in connection to various summer programs and such – or college he thought he might be interested in. All the visits happened over a year ago.</p>
<p>He has taken classes at the local community college and Colorado College – so he has a little exposure to college classes.</p>
<p>he starts school August 7th – and won’t be back home until next June, which means no more college visits. He is just going to have to use the information he can get on the internet to decide on schools. I honestly think that he is flexible enough to deal with just about anything – as long as it has the programs/courses he is looking for, he can put up with anything else.</p>
<p>I think we will leave Harvard on the list and also have him start contacting people this week. Not only will he learn if the program is what he is looking for, but the contacts he makes just might help.</p>
<p>Where does Robert Thurman teach? Columbia, NYU?</p>
<p>Robert Thurman is the Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University.</p>
<p>Cornell is the college of choice for the Indonesian intelligensia. Also, if your son is now considering smaller LACs he might take a look at Williams. No Tibetan language offerings but an enthusiastic religion department and excellent overall academics. I see they have a Tibetan expert on visting faculty now. [Kim</a> Gutschow, Williams Department of Religion](<a href=“http://www.williams.edu/Religion/gutschow.html]Kim”>http://www.williams.edu/Religion/gutschow.html)</p>
<p>Well, we spent several hours last night re-evaluating schools (including the ones he originally selected and those recommended).</p>
<p>We took a look at courses offered (level and quantity), quality of faculty, number of departments offering courses related to Tibet/Buddhism/etc, whether a specific program is offered, the daily culture of the community, reputation (in the Tibetan academic community), recommendations by Tibetan academics, etc. The very first thing we did, though, was eliminate schools on his list that would include loans in his FA package and were not Davis Scholarship Schools – he does not want to have to borrow to attend school, if at all possible, since he plans more schooling after the undergrad.</p>
<p>There were quite a few excellent schools that were eliminated because of the FA: University of Wisconsin (one of the top schools for Tibetan Studies), University of Michigan (another well-known Tibetan Studies program), University of Indiana, Emory, UCB, UCSB, Toronto, McGill. Some schools just didn’t stack up as far as their offerings or what was available in the local community: Amerst, Macalester, Williams. </p>
<p>He came up with six schools that offered his what he was looking for and had to eliminate one – he decided to eliminate the University of Chicago from his list because it has the weakest department offerings in Tibetan culture/religion/language. While a great school – the others on his list fit him better.</p>
<p>So now his list is even more selective – and I was hoping to make it more balanced. I guess he will just do his very best on these applications and if he is not accepted into any of the schools, he will reapply during his gap year (at which time he will need to decide if he wants to continue to require a school where he will graduate debt-free OR a school that offers resources to study Tibet, he can’t have both except for the 5 schools he selected)</p>
<p>His school list is now:</p>
<p>Columbia (ED)
Harvard
UVA
Cornell
Stanford</p>
<p>He has already started contacting professors from various departments to get information and express interest (in fact, he actually got responses back already and made recommendations on his list of 5 schools)</p>
<p>Now he gets to start working on application essays! He took the ACT again yesterday and felt that he did well and he will take a practice SAT and see how well he does on that (he really doesn’t want to take another standardized test, but he will if it will help him get into one of these schools).</p>
<p>Since he has an excellent safety with guaranteed admission, plus time to apply a second round during his gap year, I think it is ok to have such a top-heavy list. He knows that he could end up without a single admission letter in April and he is ok with that.</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone who had suggestions – he looked into every one (and some of those suggestions will come into play if he has to apply again during his gap year).</p>